"now that I have some time to think…"

The Silence and the Dark

The coyotes that roam the canyons begin their serenades in outcast moments. They keep no schedule. For a while they deserted me and roamed, haunting other streets and other canyons with their cries. I almost didn’t notice their return with my headphones on late and my double-paned windows keeping me isolated from nature.

But the weather is warm and the windows are open, and neighbors regularly sound the alert on our neighborhood internet bulletin board with every coyote sighting, as if they had spotted a spacecraft or an honest politician. They agonize over every pet who has been terrorized or has disappeared suddenly, blaming the coyotes, not thinking maybe the cat or dog is an escapee.

We are not there yet, but summer is on the way, and there will be hot August nights when I lie in bed and feel the sweat trickle down my back, and the silence will get deeper even with the windows wide open. In that silence, I love to hear their song begin– one and then one more and then the chorus builds to a manic crescendo that sometimes stops in a moment as if the strict maestro has whipped his baton across the horizon.

With them gone, I feel loneliness creep in and wonder if this will be a night when insomnia is my only companion, and if I will while the night away with only the silence and my thoughts. I lay still for an hour and then pad to the kitchen in the dark for water and to stare out the garden window where the moonlight provides weak, liquid light that spreads across the yard.

I strain to listen, but the choir has packed their things and gone home. I’m left alone with the silence and the dark. I let them fill me as they do so many nights. Solitary man. One can learn to love the silence and the dark.